Woods vs. Ochoa: In a photo finish, Lorena had the best 2007

Lorena Ochoa had just nudged the clinching birdie into the final cup of the LPGA season when the question was first posed by a clearly impressed scribe in the ADT Championship press room. The query was a good one.

The answers, not so much.

As evidenced by the past 11 months, when Tiger Woods and Ochoa are in a dead sprint, hardly anybody can keep pace. It's like watching greyhounds chase the electric rabbit at the dog track -- the ending seems inevitable.

Who had the better year? We aim to split hares.

We hemmed and hawed -- or, to be more gender-specific, himmed and herred. Sizing up tours, given the differences in worldwide depth, quality of courses and available money, is never going to be an apples-to-apples comparison. Apples to peaches, maybe.

Comparing absolutes is one thing, but likening abstractions is another. Thus, handicapping the performance of differing genders, ages and tours to determine 2007's most dominant player becomes a largely subjective effort.

Even hard statistics leave room for interpretation, which is what makes arguments over greasy hot wings and an ice-cold brew so much fun. So, undeterred and in honor of Ochoa's roots, here's a look at the relative seasons of Woods and Ochoa as we pose the golfing question:

¿Quien es mas macho?

We picked a broad array of 13 key categories, both mainstream and slightly more obscure, in an attempt to minimize subjectivity and establish a quantifiable winner. You might be surprised at the outcome.

(Note: Numbers presented in parenthesis indicate their individual ranking in the world or in that particular tour category.)

Lorena vs. Tiger: Ladies first?	Lorena Ochoa	Tiger Woods
2007 victories	8	7
Comment: It seems a clear-cut edge for Ochoa, until you realize that Woods won seven of his 16 starts this season, a staggering conversion rate by any standard. Both players were particularly stellar down the stretch, mostly obliterating all competition over the final weeks, but T.W. gets the edge on his cold-blooded efficiency. Ochoa won eight of 25 starts. Edge: Woods.
Top 10 finishes/starts	21/25 -- 84 percent	12/16 -- 75 percent
Comment: Conversely, here's where Ochoa gets even based on quantity. She might not have won as often as Woods, but her level of play on a percentage basis was better. Ochoa earns the nod here, even though we hesitate somewhat in light of her three blown 54-hole leads in 2007. Edge: Ochoa.
Stroke average	69.69 (1)	67.79 (1)
Comment: Woods matched his tour record in this category, right on the number, thanks to his rollicking runaway victories at his last two starts in Chicago and Atlanta, where he torched records like Mrs. O'Leary's cow burned Chi-town. He was nearly two full strokes better than Ochoa, so even allowing for better conditions on the PGA Tour, it's a lopsided number. Edge: Woods.
Stroke margin over No. 2	.81 shots	1.5 shots
Comment: Again, based on his record-tying stroke average, Woods has to get the tip of the cap. Do the math. If the second-best player in scoring average played Woods, he'd finish six shots back every week, according to the numbers. That's a mind-boggling notion, isn't it? Edge: Woods.
World ranking points (through Dec. 10)	18.35 (1)	20.79 (1)
Comment: Woods has been ranked first in the world since overtaking Vijay Singh three years ago and is seemingly pulling away. That said, Ochoa might deserve the nod because of her steep climb over the past 24 months. She has shot past veteran stars Annika Sorenstam (injured) and Karrie Webb (winless in 2007) to take a massive lead with nearly twice as many points as the No. 2 player, Webb. But fact remains, the talent pool is inestimably deeper among the men. Edge: Woods.
Ranking points over No. 2	8.78	9.20
Comment: Webb and men's No. 2 Phil Mickelson, in NASCAR terminology, have been caught in lapped traffic. Woods has a lead of 11.59 points over Lefty's rating of 8.78 and Ochoa's margin is 9.57, also more than double the total of Webb, No. 2 on the list. Woods gets the checkmark here because Mickelson won four times this year while Webb was winless, allowing Ochoa to more readily build her lead by default. Edge: Woods.
Majors in 2007	1 (British)	1 (PGA)
Comment: Interestingly, they both had chances to win majors earlier in the year and failed to deliver. After waiting until the 11th hour, each won in fairly decisive fashion in the season's final major, Woods at the PGA Championship and Ochoa at the Women's British Open, where she claimed her overdue first Grand Slam title. Given the significance of Ochoa's decisive victory at the home of golf, St. Andrews, she deserves the kudos here. Edge: Ochoa.
Money earned	$4.356 million	$10.867 million
Comment: The raw numbers lie, folks. The LPGA plays for about one-fifth the purses enjoyed by the men, so this is a landslide victory for Ochoa. Woods' total was impressive, but it wasn't a tour record. Ochoa obliterated the LPGA single-season earnings mark by $1.5 million -- which means she earned roughly 50 percent more than the old standard. That's a lot of pesos, amigos. Edge: Ochoa.
Birdies per round	4.3 (1)	4.03 (1)
Comment: As we've noted before, the PGA Tour was unusually difficult this year for a variety of reasons (harder courses, par reduced at certain stops, tougher conditions at majors). That impacted greatly the birdie totals across the board by the men, numbers which dropped considerably from previous years. Since the average difference between Ochoa and Woods was slightly more than one birdie per tournament, and Woods played the more punitive layouts, he gets the consideration here. Edge: Woods.
Greens in regulation	73.1 percent (1)	71.02 percent (1)
Comment: Hard to believe that a player who has struggled so often to put his drives in the fairway can lead in GIR, but Woods finds a way. The women play on courses that have wider fairways, but that's not Ochoa's fault. Pure and simple, she puts it on the green more often, which speaks for itself. Edge: Ochoa.
Driving distance	270.6 (3)	302.4 (12)
Comment: Didn't know that the Slightly built Ochoa was such a monster off the tee, huh? She's probably 30-40 yards longer than Morgan Pressel, just for comparative purposes. Woods can dial it up with anybody when the mood strikes, of course. But driving distances on the LPGA are more spread out. For instance, Ochoa at No. 3 in this category averaged 12 more yards than the player at No. 20. Edge: Ochoa.
Putting average per GIR	1.76 (1)	1.73 (4)
Comment: Every bit as close as it appears to be. Both players topped their tours in putting average, reinforcing that the flat stick is what separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls, to broaden a cliché. But Woods freely admits that 2007 was an unusually inconsistent season for his putter, which ran hot and cold all year, a rarity. Ochoa didn't seem as streaky. Edge: Ochoa.
Memorable highlight	ADT 18th	63 at PGA
Comment: Woods' 63 at the PGA Championship came within an eyelash of establishing the all-time mark for lowest score at one of golf's four majors, but the ball cruelly lipped out on the last hole. But for those who were paying attention, Ochoa's tourney-clinching shot on the 72nd hole at the ADT Championship stands as the most memorable shot of the year by either gender. With $1 million on the line, she hacked a shot out of the Bermuda rough to within 30 inches to nail down the biggest purse in the women's game. It marked the last full swing of 2007 in an official U.S. event, too, mind you. Edge: Ochoa.
Final edge	7	6